


The Plight of Memory

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:09:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl





	The Plight of Memory

He should have known they’d end up in the elevator together. He had been preparing his speech all day, the this-is-for-the-best-speech that he was planning on making her listen to even though it would rip both their hearts to shreds. But it had to be said, and her getting on the elevator with him was purely providential. It was time to say aloud the words that coated his tongue with filmy residue and blackened his heart. “Izzie, look--”

“Look, I don’t want you to go. To Mercy West. I don’t want you– It’s not fair.” The words came out on an unsteady breath, and he realized he hadn’t been the only one preparing a speech all day. “I know we can’t help what happened, and I know we didn’t...” She doesn’t finish what they didn’t...what? Plan, expect, ever even allow themselves to dream about? George and Izzie as best friends was believable, but George and Izzie as lovers? That was a laugh, right? An even bigger laugh than George and Meredith, or George and Callie. No one would believe it; George hardly believed it himself. “I stood in that bridal shop with your wife,” she continued, in spite of his loud thoughts, “and I smiled and talked and I....felt like–it’s not fair! I don’t want you to go to Mercy West because I’m losing my best friend. And it’s not fair!” She paused again, and he knew the big speech he planned would have to wait, or maybe it would never get said at all. Maybe it was never meant to be said. As she declared, “It’s just not fair!” again, George turned and reached out, his hand wrapping around her elbow for a moment before just hanging on to the fabric of her coat by his fingertips.

He tugged on the material of her coat, because he couldn’t go through with pulling her into his arms. He was married, it was wrong, even hugging Izzie now, being close to her, smelling her special scent, it was all wrong, because it was all he could think about. That night with her, because he had been drunk, was all blurry and dreamlike, and he seemed to remember the amazing softness of her skin and the smooth pliancy of her beneath him, and he could tell himself it wasn’t really that great. He could tell himself he just remembered it that way, but that wasn’t reality, until with his ineffectual tugging on her sleeve, she threw herself against him. Her cheek slid against his before her forehead came to rest on his shoulder, and it was the sweetest feeling he’d ever felt, because it was exactly like he remembered.

But now it was clear, and happening, and she was right there, in his arms. Oh, God, Izzie.

He closed his eyes to savor it, and even when she sniffed, it seemed to be the most erotic sound he’d ever heard, and her head turned, her skin melding with his again, and he felt his entire body respond. His mouth opened slightly to draw her inside through all his senses, and he brushed the edge of his mouth on her jaw line. All of him curved up towards her, seeking her, needing her, wanting her more than he could ever remember wanting anyone.

He kept his eyes closed, and he imagined his lips on hers again, and he knew they had to get trapped in the elevator together so he could have one moment of touching her and feeling her that was completely clear and now. Her cheek continued to rub against his, and then her lips were brushing at his, soft, pliable, plump, everything Izzie, that he never knew would make him feel more alive and manly than anything else in his life ever had.

As her mouth opened, he felt his tongue move out towards hers, and it seemed like every molecule inside him just wanted to move forward into the space her body occupied. In every way he could be inside her, he wanted to experience that totally, again, right now. Her hands came up, he felt them brush against his coat, but then he lifted a hand to cup her face. Splaying his fingers against her neck, craving her softness under his fingertips, his forefinger touched the curve of her jaw, and he felt the tendons work there as she opened her mouth wider to accept his tongue and to thrust hers forward to eagerly meet him.

He wanted her, wanted her, wanted her. He wanted that night back, only he wanted to be totally sober so every detail would be finite to him, so that every curve of her body would stand out in stark alignment. The weight of her lush breasts in his palms, the curve of her hips as he smoothed his hands down them, the dampness between her thighs coating his fingers as he teased her with the promise of what was to come. If only he had a lifetime to experience it all, to love Izzie every day of his life the way he had loved her for one brief blip in time. Time he never knew he wanted until it was certain he could never have it at all.

It was that thought that gave him the strength to push her back, knowing he should never have turned to her in the first place. Their lips tearing apart felt like an actual physical ripping in the middle of his chest, and his whispered, “I can’t,” sounded as though it broke off from the farthest place inside him that could never be whole, not without Izzie.

“I know,” she whispered back, the pain on her face as real, and as infinite as the details he wished he could have back. But it was better that he couldn’t remember it in its entirety, because if he could, he couldn’t look at his wife and walk out of the elevator to join his fingers with hers, and leave Izzie standing there wanting him.


End file.
